An overview of Shape Deposition Manufacturing (SDM) is presented, detailing
manufacturing, thermal and mechanical issues of concern in making it a commercially viable
method for creating arbitrarily shaped three-dimensional metal parts. SDM is a layered
manufacturing process which combines the benefits of solid freeform fabrication and other
processing operations, such as multi-axis CNC machining. This manufacturing process makes
possible the fabrication of multi-material layers, structures of arbitrary geometric complexity,
artifacts with controlled microstructures, and the embedding of electronic components and sensors
in conformal shape structures. Important issues toward the production of high quality objects are
the creation of inter-layer metallurgical bonding through substrate remelting, the control of cooling
rates of both the substrate and the deposition material, and the minimization of residual thermal
stress effects. Brief descriptions of thermal and mechanical modeling aspects of the process are
given. Because SDM involves molten metal deposition, an understanding of thermal aspects of the
process is crucial. Current thermal modeling of the process is centered on the issue of localized
remelting of previously deposited material by newly deposited molten droplets. Residual stress
build-up is inherent to any manufacturing process based on successive deposition of molten
material. Current mechanics modeling is centered on the issues of residual stress build-up and
residual stress-driven debonding between deposited layers.Mechanical Engineerin
